about farieissia
On June 9th 2015 Farieissia Martin, at the age of 22, was convicted of the murder of Kyle Farrell, her violent partner. The trial was two weeks long and the jury were out for one and a half hours returning a unanimous verdict. Farieissia was given a tariff of 13 years.
At the time of the incident, Farieissia and Kyle had 2 children under the age of 3.
Kyle and Farieissia had known each other since primary school and had been together from the ages of 16. Kyle had been sent to anger management sessions at Primary school. A year into the relationship Kyle started to be violent to Farieissia. The relationship was off and on with a pattern of violence, splitting up and reconciling. Kyle’s violence often left Farieissia in fear of her life. Farieissia did not call the police for fear that social services would become involved and remove the children
On the night of the incident, Farieissia had been out and Kyle was babysitting. On her return he attacked her including trying to strangle her. In order to defend herself and in fear of her life, Farieissia reached for anything to help stop him. Kyle died as a result of a single stab wound to the heart.
When Farieissia was arrested, she initially lied about the events of the evening, for fear of the children being left alone without either of their parents.
During the trial the history of violence was not explored and a mental health assessment was not carried out. These two issues form part of the grounds for appealing the sentence and conviction. Fri’s application to appeal was turned down by the single judge earlier this year but on 3rd December 2019, a panel of three judges heard Fri’s renewed application and granted leave to appeal.
Fri’s appeal was heard on 16th and 17th December 2020 and subsequently quashed with a retrial ordered. New evidence was later discovered in the form of photographs taken at the time of Fri’s arrest which clearly showed the bruising to her neck, supporting her account of strangulation. Rather than a retrial, Fri was allowed to plea guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. Fri was released in December 2021
More details about the case can read here